By Jacob Klein
Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing #2: Emphasis on Bottom-Up Organizing
To succeed, it is important to reach out into new constituencies, and to reach within all levels of leadership and membership base of the organizations that are already involved in our networks. We must be continually building and strengthening a base which provides our credibility, our strategies, mobilizations, leadership development, and the energy for the work we must do daily.
We return again to exploring the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing, this time digging into the “emphasis on bottom-up organizing.” When it comes to organizing, there are many different approaches, each with their own merits. To build a campaign is to require nimbleness. To build a movement requires emphasizing the grassroots.
The Sierra Club often touts itself as the largest grassroots environmental organization. And indeed, volunteers have long been the backbone of this organization through goal-setting, labor, and more. However, there are many ways in which we can be a top-down organization — as well as an organization that is out of touch with our broad-based membership and greater community. Leadership can at times reflect a select portion of local demographics, thus entrenching particular points of view and priorities.
Bottom-up organizing, however, gives us an opportunity to expand our notions, and ultimately achieve greater movement health. Bottom-up focuses on the directly impacted and the less heard. Priorities are established not by grants or management or a third party, but by the people in the room sharing their thoughts. Bring in people, educate if necessary, listen always, and you’ll be surprised at what people are experiencing, the insights they have into an issue, and the creativity of their solutions.
Those of us who are in a position of power, even relative power, can easily become fixed in the processes we’re comfortable with. I definitely fall prey to this at times, when I get caught up in a familiar pattern of response: identify a problem, spread the word, create an action, and hope people go with it. I lose out on what may be the more effective and holistic strategy.
Instead, by creating space that includes people from all aspects of an organization, from other organizations, and from the directly impacted, we can get a clearer picture of the issue. From there, we can grow together, developing a whole movement of leaders, rather than a select few who tap community members when convenient.
This leads to another pitfall that bottom-up organizing can address: when a movement is dependent on a single person, that means that it’s fragile. Sure, leadership and guidance are powerful and necessary, but when a leader disappears — an unfortunate reality — the movement can spin out and wither.
Something I try to do, and admittedly fail at sometimes, is make sure that I’m not only talking to the Sierra Club leaders representing an area, or my typical partners, but reaching out to the groups that are most affected, the residents of a community, the leaders already established. By connecting to a base of people, we can build something that is multidimensional and sustainable — no matter what vagaries are thrown its way.
When a movement has participation from more people, and more diverse people (don’t forget the first Jemez principle, Be inclusive!), it has greater validity and power. If I were to speak at a hearing and say that I alone support a cause — that has considerably less weight than if I speak up in solidarity with a collective.
Building that collective, building from the bottom up, often takes more work. But it’s so worth it. That work taps into people’s leadership potential and lifts up the power that they had the whole time. If we truly support people power, then we must respect the power of each person. Put that all together, and we can change the world.
Jacob Klein is an organizer for the Sierra Club SF Bay Chapter.